J's stories - just for fun

  Bird Brains

Alas, I am surrounded by bird brains.

I went to let the Muscovy out this morning, but the geese insisted on gathering in front of the door. The Muscovy understandably, refused to go out.

So I closed that door and opened the north door. The Muscovy just stood there and stared at the south door. I tried shooing those who were closest to the north door, but finally, I had to grab a duck off the perch and toss her out the door.

Yep, bird brains, the lot of them!

What's in a Name?

It was a very long time ago that we adopted our first Muscovy. They have awesome and unique personalities, and other than the pure white ducks, generally have enough variety in colouring that naming them was clearly the thing to do.

Hubby decided that they should be named after printing technology, since they were so good at "reproducing"! Thus our first two were named Xerox and Gestetner. That second name certainly dates me! I remember using one of those way back in my High School days.

That the white ducks all looked the same was solved one year when I threw up my hands and started calling all the white ducks, "BWD" - saying each letter. This peaked the curiosity of my friend who also had some Muscovy, and she just had to ask what it stood for.

"Bossy White Duck," I responded. She laughed so hard I worried she'd fall over. It is *absolutely* true. The white ducks are the bossiest!

We had long since run out of replicating machine names, so one year my son decided the new girls would be named after the characters in a TV show we liked. That actually worked quite well. The characters were different enough, that matching name and personality really did work.

More recently, I named a bunch after my Eldest Sister's favorite poem as a child. Ogden Nash's, Custard the Dragon. Unfortunately, there are hardly enough names there to last a season the way my girls reproduce, but sometimes it's the thought that counts. A dark grey duck that got called Dragon, definitely lived up to her name and her nigh identical daughter crossed fiction lines and got the moniker Sting.

Over time, the names and ducks have faded in my memory, but they had good lives on my homestead. Their offspring are still roaming our big field during the day, still *insisting* they deserve to sit on eggs to hatch, and looking up with longing in their eyes, for a little handout of chicken pellets. My friend insists they know their names, too!

Miss Dickens*

I sheepishly admit, I got into chickens for a very shitty reason - their manure for my garden. However, chickens are great small farm employees, providing eggs, sometimes feathers, sometimes self-replicating, sometimes meat (when that self-replicating produces too many roosters) and definitely, bug control.

However, they do have their downside, and pecking order is often part of it. If the large group takes a hate on for a chicken, her life can turn to misery. This has happened regularly over the years, and often my solution is to move the poor girl in with our Khaki Campbell ducks.

I have read places that having ducks and chickens together isn't ideal. Yes, ducks are *very* messy with their water. They don't perch, and chickens prefer to. Ducks need more Vit B than chickens, so the feed needs to be tweaked. But can they get along? The short answer is, yes!

I was concerned. A girl in one of our portable shelters was tending to hide in a nest box and if I was there collecting eggs or filling their water buckets, there was clearly another chicken targeting her. So I moved her to the Khaki shelter. She wasn't laying (the difference between Khaki eggs and a brown chicken egg is clear) and she was a little concerned about her new neighbors, but she settled in quickly and after a few weeks, started laying again. However, she did seem a little lonely for her own kind.

Again, I was concerned. A girl in a different shelter was monopolizing a nest box. When she came out, she'd fluff out her feathers and make mother chicken noises. Sigh... broody! I tried moving her into a dog crate in the Khaki shelter, but a heat wave hit, and she broke brood. I was OK with this. I had put some extra eggs in the incubator for her, as I *knew* the temperatures were going to be iffy. The Khaki shelter tends to run on the hot side - not a problem for birds who are happy to jump into their rubber tub, but definitely a problem for developing eggs.

So I was OK with this outcome. She and the original chicken agreed to coexist. However, this new girl has personality and desires. I rarely name Industrial Chickens as they all look just the same. But she's unique, and claimed the name, Miss Dickens.

To be honest, she really wants a mate. I hardly qualify, but I'm as good as it's going to get. What makes her so unique? Every night - without fail - when everyone's gone from the run into the coop for the night, she comes right back out, squats, and will not move, until I pat her.  I pat her lower back, and she fluffs up her feathers as if she's been serviced by a rooster, and she's content - until the next night!

I sometimes wonder what she'd do if I put her in with a rooster?


*Miss Dickens - a chicken that prefers to hang with the ducks, is a dicken

Sometimes I Just Need a New Descriptor

Our Drake hasn't been doing a good job! Two of my inexperienced moms had a bunch of infertile eggs, coupled with atypically hot weather. This seemed to confuse the moms so they failed to transition and we had no surviving ducklings. This was very sad for me.

Salty to the rescue! She's one of my older Muscovy and she's always been a great mom. She also was the last of that group to go broody, so although we continued to have some hot days, they weren't as extreme. Late last week, she hatched out 5 ducklings and had only one DOA. She looks incredibly happy.

Needless to say, she's also now a great distraction in the field when I probably ought to be doing more productive things than admiring her adorable family. The babies will all be a mixture of black, white and grey from their markings. One seems to have a small light patch right behind both eyes. If that marking stays (some markings seem to disappear when they go through their last "teenager" molt and become adults), the baby may end up with some eyes that look much larger than they really are. I feel like I'm playing lottery numbers only the lottery's free and good results win me beauty, not money.

As I was quietly observing her family while filling the outside duck and geese bathtubs, it occurred to me that we have a gaggle of geese, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows, but what do we call a little group of ducklings, snuggled together in a sunbeam, looking content?

Well, I don't know what you might call them, or experts might call them, but I've decided, I've got a Puddle of Ducklings! I'm willing to share my descriptor with any other duck herders out there!

Thanks for sharing all of these farmbird stories with us.

Salty is the Best

Salty's "puddle of ducklings" have grown into early high school ducks. The two girls are almost ready to try some practice flying. The boys are practicing being tanks. Salty looks like she thinks her family has outgrown their bedtime accommodations, but the adult shelter is too full and the Drake isn't likely to accept the boys, so after a little reminder to her daughters that I can be big and scary when required, they've agreed that it's really quite fine so long as I let them out early in the morning.

Then shit happened. A Chicken mom who was raising 16 chicks in another mini-hoop took a hate on for one small male rooster. No idea why. Neither I nor my  friend could find anything wrong with him. Sigh...

The long-term plan was for the roosters to go to freezer camp when they grew enough. They will likely only be about 3 lbs when that happens, as they're layer roosters, not a heavy breed. It's hard being a farmer and having to make the tough decisions. The little guy was too small to be on his own.

Welllll.... I wonder what would happen if this little guy was in Salty's house at bedtime? He'll be warm enough with the sun shining until then. Since their house has a mesh area near the ground, Salty + 5 clearly noticed they had company ahead of time. They also had their ration of pellets in a feeder at the far end. Muscovy are *very* food motivated! Salty went right in, no trouble, no poking the newbie, no looking ticked at me, and her family followed her example.

It was a cold night. I really didn't know what I would find in the morning. There was the chick, snuggled beside one of the ducks. The ducks, of course, all wanted out to play. Now chick wasn't happy! Chicks are groupies - alone is scary and bad. So I went to his old shelter, grabbed two more chicks and moved them over. Now injured chick was happy, and the other two were peeping for their mom. Alas, life is tough, and I still felt this was my best option. Sure enough, within a short time, they'd formed a happy little group.

However, a bigger test was yet to come. How would Salty react to three chicks? Maybe she's not that good at counting? Maybe she really doesn't care so long as her ducklings are with her too? Who knows what's going on in her head, but she just marched right in!

It was another cold night last night. The chicks and ducks were all fine and happy this morning, although the chicks seemed to think they might just be thinking of following those big hot water bottles outside for the day. Sorry little ones, you are totally hawk bait. No out days for you three.

The story will continue... as chicks and ducks grow!

Maybe ducks are like dogs - they can count to 'lots':  one, two, lots, lots, lots... As long as salty has lots of babies, she won't mind some extras.
Glad they're safe so far.

Sun - what's Sun?

My region has strong influence from El Nino and La Nina in the Pacific, particularly in the winter. There are other factors too, that shift temperature, rainfall, and wind direction, over periods of years to decades.

This year, like some in the past, the low threatening clouds moved in and stayed. September and October were close to "average rainfall", and if anything it was warmer than average. My allotment garden tomatoes gave me a great fall harvest, thanks to that.

November didn't make the rainfall average on my farm, but the number of cloudy/foggy/ scuzzy days was pretty much all of them!

Now December has arrived and it made its "average" rainfall in the first two weeks and it's been raining since. The Winter Solstice is 3 days away and I doubt I'll even notice a difference!

So if any of you have an excess of sunshine you can send to the Pacific Wet Coast, I will be happy to receive that gift! Even a couple of hours would help!

At least the ducks prefer rain over snow...

Lots of rain here this month too, I don't have any sun to spare you.

        The Sun Goddess Returns

The last two days have been horrible. The records claim it got up to 7C, but there was a cold wind, dark clouds and either rain or the threat of rain. Everything was drippy, wet and cold! There was a little sun, but only when I was inside. *Every* time I got dressed to go out to do something, the clouds and cold wind yelled, "Fooled you!!! No sun for you!"

Today, when I left for the field it was closer to 3C, but the Sun was out. The grass in the field was crunchy from a hard frost, but my fingers were warm. If it wasn't such a nuisance in the field, I'd have ditched a layer of clothing. I *really* wished I'd brought lighter gloves. Instead of doing just the essentials and heading for the house, I did some extra cleaning and mulching of the Hoopie Khaki house, cleared out some Himalayan Blackberry we've been working on, broke up a pending argument between two Muscovy Drakes (really, Gandalf, you should know that moving in on Bro's favorite girl is going to get someone hurt!), and then took all the eggs down to the house.

Yesterday, long before that much work had been done, I was in by the fire trying to thaw my fingers. Today, as soon as I dropped off the eggs, I headed back out to service a couple groups of birds over on Sgt Pepper's Land.

Only after all that, did I decide to go in, not because I was cold, but because my tummy said it was lunch time.

So I absolutely am celebrating the Sun Goddess today! She banished the clouds, at least from my field. She warmed me up, and gave me hope that spring really will come - at some point, after a lot more rain...

  No - Just no!

Chicken: Baaack...bawk bawk... whiny bawk, bawk (Rough translation: don't take my nice egg. I want to sit on it and hatch a baby.)

Jay: Sweetie, it's January. Yes we had one gloriously sunny day, but the forecast is back to rain off the end of the chart. This in *not* the time to start a family.

Chicken: Whiny - baaawwwk, bawk bawk bawk. (Rough translation: I promise I'll keep the egg nice and warm and the babies warm too - really, I promise.

Jay: Very firmly - No it's too cold and damp, and the brooder never got cleaned out after Hubby left birds in it too long, and it's a crappy dark place for raising layer chicks anyway.

Chicken: Questioning - Baaawk  baaaaawk? (Rough translation: Why? I don't need a brooder - I just need a safe place for me and my babies.)

Jay: Realizing that rationality and logic just isn't going to work... No. Just no. Not happening...

Stay tuned for future updates. Just how long will Ms Broody keep monopolizing that nest box, and just how long will Ms Jay's firmness survive?

We've had 2 weeks of sunshine and my MIL's chickens have increased laying as though spring has begun, even though it hasn't.  We're rainy again though so I don't know what they'll do now.